Joby, Archer Aviation Stocks Drop. Tesla’s News Was Only About EVs.

Archer Aviation’s Midnight eVTOL aircraft. (Business Wire)

Key Points

• Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation shares dropped 3.4% and 8.5% respectively, after Tesla’s announcement focused solely on cars.
• Speculation that Tesla’s announcement would involve aviation had led to Joby stock rising 7% and Archer shares increasing 18%.
• Tesla unveiled new “Standard” versions of its Model Y and Model 3 vehicles, priced under $40,000 and $38,000 respectively.

For investors in Joby and Archer Aviation , Tesla giveth and Tesla taketh away.

Shares of the pair, which make electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, dropped on Tuesday after an announcement from Tesla turned out to be only about cars, as generally expected. There wasn’t so much as a whisper about aviation.

At the closing, Joby stock dropped 3.4% to $18.91. Archer shares fell 8.5% to $12.48.

Declines continued on Wednesday. Joby fell 8.1%. Archer traded as low as $10.95, but rallied to close at $12.46, down 0.2%. The S&P 500 added 0.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished flat.

Those moves came after Joby stock added 7% on Monday, with Archer shares up 18%, as investors speculated that the significant announcement the company planned to make on Tuesday might have something to do with aviation. A tweet about Tuesday’s announcement included a video showing a spinning wheel with a Tesla logo that could have been the rotor of a Tesla eVTOL, or quadcopter drone.

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Instead, Tesla unveiled “Standard” versions of its Model Y and Model 3 vehicles, starting under $40,000 and $38,000, respectively.

The news was essentially what investors expected. Tesla stock rose 5.1% in anticipation of the news and fell 4.4% on Tuesday, leaving shares up about $3 for the week.

Coming into Wednesday trading, Joby was still up 3.6% for the week. Archer was up 7.9%. Now Archer is up about 7.7% this week. Joby Stock is down almost 5%.

Neither Joby nor Archer generates significant sales yet, and both are waiting for regulatory approvals to launch commercial services. Wall Street doesn’t expect either company to achieve billions of dollars in sales until late in the decade.

The stocks, which tend to move on product updates, trade widely.

Wednesday’s drop left Joby up about 29% over the past month. Archer has gained about 46% over the past month. Joby stock has ranged from $4.80 to $20.95 over the past 12 months, while Archer has ranged from $2.85 to $13.92.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com